Days 8-10, Denver

Andrew:

Tuesday started off pretty well; we were in a new place, staying (comfortably) with friends, and we were starting to think about what our next moves were going to be. After sleeping in and waking up late, Sarah took us through town to find the grocery store so we could buy more food before we left. We ended up just buying some chili (a good purchase, unlike the refried beans from earlier) and some more chocolate chip granola bars.

On the way back from the store, Sarah got a call from a friend of hers asking if we wanted to go to a concert that night at Red Rocks auditorium. Ryan and I weren't terribly enthused, since we didn't want to pay that kind of money, but Sarah quickly clarified that we would listen from the mountainside behind the auditorium for free. It turns out that Modest Mouse was opening for R.E.M. (Modest Mouse is one of my favorite bands).

Basically, we gathered everyone up and piled into the car (2 in front, 4 in back) and went to pick up some beer for the show. Mary (one of Sarah's friends) parked the car in town (Morrison) because we thought we'd have to pay for parking. Unfortunately, the hike was long, especially with a 12-pack and 3 full nalgenes in your backpack, AND parking turned out to be free.
The concert was pretty cool, at least I liked the Modest Mouse portion, but we didn't get to see the stage...not a big deal. After it got darker, it got cold (I was in shorts and a t-shirt) and so did Sarah, so we headed back down to the car to wait for the others. It was only R.E.M. playing at that time anyway.

Ryan:

All in all, I have to say that I'm a fan of the free concert option. There were probably ~50 people up on the mountain side, so apparently it's a relatively popular one too. There were a bunch of security guards in the amphitheater to keep people from trying to climb up the sides and jump in. They kept shining their flashlights along the hills to look for people sitting to hear the concert for free. I think they were just bored, or trying to scare people off of the hills, because they never actually hiked out to kick us off (way too much work on their part to accomplish basically nothing). I'm not a big Modest Mouse or R.E.M. fan, but I don't mind free music while sitting in the hills.

The pictures of Red Rocks are from the previous day, when we remembered to bring the camera. We tried climbing all the way to the top of one of the foothills, but had to turn around because one of Sarah's friends had to be somewhere, so we ran out of time. A lot of the pictures are from up there. They had a little museum downstairs with the history of the amphitheater and a list of all of the shows that had been played there going back in the 30s or 40s.

I have to say, hiking around in the foothills is a lot of fun. It's beautiful country out here (as I hope the pictures will... illustrate, so to speak). I'm the kind of person that enjoys just walking around and exploring places, so I've been having a great time hiking around and taking pictures.

Andrew:

Wednesday, day 9, was pretty much just us doing things that needed to get done: laundry (FINALLY), planning for camping, planning for bus routes, buying tickets (for a cave in Colorado Springs), walking around buying supplies, etc. It was a very productive day, but it still felt like we were sitting around on our butts a lot of the time. We did the dishes for our hosts that morning as a way of trying to repay them for our stay (thanks again Sarah, Lauren, Mariana, and Kelsy!). All in all, a really boring day.

Thursday was more of the same, we had planned to go to Colorado Springs for that day, but Ryan shut off the alarm and went back to sleep instead of waking both of us up. The weather ended up being kind of bad though (rain/wind) and the forcast in Co. Springs wasn't any better. We ended up wasting the day away, and our hosts were surprised to find us inside when they got back from their respective jobs.

Friday we went down to colorado springs for the day. We woke up at 5:45 that morning so that we could walk to a bus stop that would take us on a 90 minute ride South. We left our packs at Sarah's and just brought food and water for the day, we planned to return that evening (the last bus out was at 5:15). I wasn't too happy waking up that early, but I got to sleep on the bus (which was a very nice bus) and that made up for it.

Ryan:

I didn't so much shut off the alarm and then go back to sleep as shut off the alarm and fall back asleep. I was up until 2:30 or 3 am the night before, so staying awake after only 3 hours of sleep was apparently more than I could handle. Anyway, the next post is Colorado Springs, to try to cut down on clutter and posts of excessive length.

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